You Can Never Leave
by whatanauthorsgottado
Summary: The Hotel California does not let go of its guests so easily. Oneshot. Sequel to Welcome.


It began shortly after they returned home.

Anubin would see her face or hair passing by out of the corner of his eye. Marr would hear her voice when he went out, never coherent, but always laughing or happy-sounding. Either would feel touches on their hands or back when the other was occupied.

"Are we being haunted?!" Anubin demanded one day after feeling another touch.

"It certainly seems that way," Marr muttered. "Perhaps we have not left the Hotel California as far behind as we thought."

That night, Anubin decided to do something that he had never heard recommended by anyone with half a brain cell: he bought a Ouija board with the intention of using it.

"Satele, are you there?" Anubin felt a little stupid when the planchette didn't move, but he tried again. "Satele, if you're there... Please. Please answer me."

Nothing.

Anubin stood and angrily paced the room. They couldn't be imagining the touches, the glimpses... but why wouldn't she respond when she had the opportunity?

Just then he felt another touch on his back, and he whirled around to face the board. A moment later, the planchette slowly began to move.

Anubin seized a notepad and pen and began to write down the letters as the planchette indicated them, reading them aloud for Marr's benefit.

HELLO MY LOVES

IT'S SATELE

I'VE BEEN TRYING TO GET YOUR ATTENTION

"What do you need our attention for?"

YOU ARE IN DANGER

THE BEAST YOU KILLED WAS DEFEATED BUT NOT DESTROYED

"What do we do?"

I DON'T KNOW

FOR NOW RUN

"I will not run from this beast," Marr stated, his tone making it clear that he was immovable. "I refuse to run."

"We'll find a way to destroy it for good," Anubin agreed. "I have old friends that might be able to help."

THE BEAST IS NEARLY UPON YOU

WHOEVER YOU'RE CALLING DO IT QUICKLY

"I'll call Andronikos tonight," Anubin said. "He can put me in contact with someone who can help, I'm sure."

True to his word, he called his old friend that night.

"Good to hear your voice finally, you bastard. What's up?"

"Hello again, Andronikos. It hasn't been that long, has it?"

"Marriage getting to your brains? It's been months and I haven't heard from ya."

"Damn. Sorry. Anyway, I need your help."

Andronikos sighed heavily. "Fine. What is it you need?"

"We've got some kind of angry ghost following us, I was wondering if you knew anyone who deals with that sort of thing."

"Ghosts?" Andronikos snorted. "Only you would have problems with things that don't exist." He hesitated. "Ya know, Zash might have had some tips for ya about this kinda thing. Don't know much about the supernatural myself. Khem Val might be able to help you more. But I got a couple of favours I can pull, see if I can't find you someone who can help."

"I was going to call Khem, but I'd appreciate anything you can do."

"No problem. I'll ask around."

"Thanks, Andronikos. We should get together at some point, go for a drink or something."

"Soon, yeah. Sounds like you should get all this figured out first though."

"Probably for the best. Talk to you soon."

"See ya."

Anubin hung up and glared at his phone. "Of course Zash would know more, she dealt with the supernatural on a regular basis. I remember that much. But she's dead now, idiot."

He sighed and dialled again. After several rings, he heard the deep angry tones of Khem Val. "What is it?"

"Khem, it's Anubin. I've got an angry ghost following me – would you know anything about what to do?"

The old man blew through his teeth. "How do you come to have an angry ghost after you, little one?"

"Marr and I killed it – it had trapped us, and we had to kill it to get away."

"Then the spirit will not be placated. There are ways of destroying ghosts, but I do not know them myself. I can ask some of those I know and see if they know the rituals required, but they are difficult to reach. And the rituals themselves will be costly and difficult."

"Any hope is better than none. That being said, the sooner you can reach them, the better – the ghost will be on us soon."

"Your next action should then be to run. Move far away from this ghost so you can prepare to face it."

"So we've been advised," Anubin muttered. "We didn't want to run, but it looks like we have no choice."

There was a short silence. "By whom have you been advised, little one?"

Anubin hesitated. "We have another ghost. She's benevolent. We knew her in life as well."

"Fool. How do you know this ghost's intentions?"

"She was our lover in life. Her presence is still with us."

"And you want her to return," Khem surmised. "She will not return to life."

"I know," Anubin snapped. "if you have nothing else useful to say, I'm going to hang up."

"Be careful of this other ghost. If you loved her so dearly, your angry ghost may use that weakness."

"Goodbye, Khem." Anubin slammed the phone down on the table and knelt by the Ouija board.

"Satele... Love..."

The planchette shook slightly back and forth, as though Satele was shaking her metaphysical head. I DON'T KNOW LOVE, it spelled out.

"It'll work out," Anubin said, more certainly than he felt. It felt to him as though the only person he was reassuring was himself.

* * *

The next day, Marr and Anubin packed up and left once again, heading north out of town, in the opposite direction of the former Hotel California. On Marr's lap sat the Ouija board, the planchette perfectly still in spite of any bumps in the road.

At one point, they pulled over to hash out a plan. They decided there was nothing they could really do but drive until they received some news, so they would do that.

In the meantime, though, Anubin had some questions for Satele. "How quickly can you follow us?"

I AM WHERE YOU ARE

I CAN FOLLOW YOU AS QUICKLY AS YOU CAN MOVE

"Can you touch or move anything but the planchette and us?"

NO

I CAN TOUCH YOU BECAUSE I AM TIED TO YOU

"Why can you move the planchette, but nothing else? That doesn't make much sense."

I DON'T KNOW

"Alright. Well, is there anything else we should know?" He asked this more of Marr than Satele.

"Can you sense the beast?"

YES

IT IS SEVERAL DAYS TRAVEL FROM YOU

BUT IT IS GAINING QUICKLY WHILE WE ARE NOT MOVING

"Can you speak to other dead people? Other workers at the Hotel California, for instance?"

SOME OTHERS FROM THE HOTEL ARE ALSO GHOSTS

MOST DEAD AREN'T TIED TO THIS WORLD

I CAN SPEAK TO OTHER GHOSTS BUT NOT MOST DEAD PEOPLE

"No help from Zash on this one, then," Anubin muttered. "For all the help she ever was."

WHO IS ZASH

"An old friend. She was something of an expert in the supernatural. New age rituals, spiritualism, that sort of thing. She thought she had some prophetic dream or another where she took over my body, so she tried to get me into this ritual. She died instead."

I SEE

SHE SEEMS TO WEIGH ON YOU

"It's not anything that can be helped now," he said, a little more snappishly than he intended. "Unless her ghost i's following me around too, there's nothing she can do to help. She never wrote her rituals down that I know of, and even if she did I wouldn't know where to find them." He was quiet for a moment. "Let's just go. Zash is in the past, there's nothing we can do about her now."

* * *

They continued north for several days before Anubin received a call from Andronikos.

"Got anything for me?"

"Got one lead. Not much by the sounds of it though. Some old guy claims he knew Zash and has some records of some of her rituals. I don't know how or why, but everything else came up empty, so this is your best bet."

"Alright. Where is this man?"

Andronikos gave them the man's location and name – Teneb Kel, but he usually went by Thanaton – and sent them on their way.

"Thanaton. What a reassuring name," Anubin muttered.

They arrived at Thanaton's house a few days later. Anubin knocked at the door, and it creaked open after a few moments.

"Can I help you?" a gaunt older man asked.

"We're looking for a Teneb Kel, or Thanaton, perhaps. Are you him?"

"I am Thanaton, yes. Who are you, and what do you want?"

"I am Anubin, and this is Marr. We have an angry ghost chasing after us, and we were told you may be able to help us get rid of it."

Thanaton studied him with a look that felt as though he could see through him. "I may. You had best come in."

Thanaton led them into a small sitting room, immaculately decorated, with an air that suggested that anything out of place would immediately be noticed by its inhabitant. When Marr and Anubin were seated, Thanaton fixed them with a similar look to the one he had been giving Anubin earlier.

"You're Zash's apprentice, aren't you?"

"Zash considered me her apprentice, yes, for all she ever taught me," Anubin replied. "You know what happened to her, right?"

"I am aware. Zash was foolish and reckless and should not have attempted rituals that were beyond her. Still, her loss is a blow to those of us who are aware of supernatural phenomena."

At Anubin's questioning look, Thanaton rolled his eyes. "Supernatural phenomena, such as shapeshifters and, as you have discovered, ghosts, certainly exist. There is a large community, hidden to the wider world, that learns to deal with such things. I am part of that community, as was Zash. Likely, you will deal with more members of this community as you attempt to rid yourselves of this ghost."

"I see. Anyway, is there anything you can do to help us with our ghost problem?"

"I may have records of some rituals that may help – but I'll need to know more about the nature of this ghost. Do you know its origins and why it is after the two of you, specifically?"

"It started when we were vacationing earlier this month..." Anubin explained the story to Thanaton. At the mention of the Hotel California, the older man sucked in a breath.

"You were lucky to have escaped the Hotel California alive. Few are those who enter the hotel who leave it again."

"It was not luck," Marr refuted. "We destroyed the beast that ruled over the hotel. The hotel disappeared, but the beast seems to have returned to destroy us in return."

"I see." Thanaton considered this for a moment. "If you destroyed the beast and it has come looking for revenge, then perhaps what happened was, instead of destroying the hotel, you imprisoned the energy of the place inside yourselves. If the beast succeeds in destroying you, it will take the energy back and recreate the hotel, or another such trap for the unwary."

"How do we destroy it?" Anubin persisted. "Obviously we'd rather not die, so our only other option is to destroy the remnants of the beast or run from it until we die anyway."

Thanaton thought for a moment. "This is no ordinary ghost. If it was, there would be a simple ritual to bind it to the world of the dead permanently, thus ending its existence in our world. In this case, the beast is tied to your life forces; likely, one of you will have to sacrifice yourselves to destroy the beast for good."

"No!" Anubin leapt to his feet and Marr tensed, glaring at Thanaton. "Not happening, not a chance."

Thanaton glared right back at Anubin. "Sit down, boy. There is a possibility that you will not have to die for this, but it will involve the loss of the ghost seated with you."

"No. We're not losing Satele, not again."

Thanaton raised his eyebrow. "So you would rather run for the rest of your lives? In that case, I think we're done here." He gestured to the door. "I trust you can see yourselves out."

Anubin hesitated, glancing at the door, then took the Ouija board from Marr's hands and placed it on the table. Thanaton eyed it with distaste.

"Such a crude method of communicating with ghosts."

Anubin shrugged. "It was what we had. Satele... What do you think of this plan?"

I DON'T LIKE THE IDEA OF EITHER OF YOU SACRIFICING YOURSELVES

BUT THIS IS HARDLY AN EXISTENCE

TO RID YOU AND THE WORLD OF THE BEAST I WOULD GIVE ANYTHING INCLUDING MY EXISTENCE

"Then that is settled," Thanaton said. "I assume one of you knows the location of the beast?"

IT'S ABOUT TWO DAYS' TRAVEL BEHIND US

"That doesn't give us much time to prepare, but we will make do. It would be more advantageous to perform this ritual on a full moon, but again, we have little choice in the matter."

"What do we have to do for this ritual?"

Thanaton described a long and complicated process, which Anubin hardly absorbed. Marr, on the other hand, listened intently, with the sharp mind and memory he possessed in full evidence.

"I will provide you with a list of instructions and the materials needed, but you will have to assemble and perform the ritual yourselves. Having more people involved will be dangerous for them, and I'm not risking my safety for the sake of people I just met."

"FIne. Thank you for your help in any case."

Thanaton left the room and returned with a freshly printed sheaf of paper, neatly stapled together. Anubin took it and the Ouija board and the pair left the house, heading for the nearest shopping center to prepare the ingredients for the ritual.

"Good thing these are mostly common materials," Anubin muttered. "We'd be screwed otherwise."

* * *

Two days later, they'd finally prepared everything needed for the ritual, including securing an out-of-the-way spot to hold it. They'd managed to convince a nearby farmer to let them use a vacant field for the night, allowing them to set up and perform the ritual undisturbed by any passers-by.

When Satele advised them that the beast was less than an hour away, Anubin began to light the twelve candles arranged in a circle, with a pyre to the southwest, downwind of the circle. Later on, when they had the beast bound inside the circle, they'd have to light the pyre using the third candle from the north, and Anubin or Marr would have to sacrifice themselves on it.

Together, Anubin and Marr began to say the words that were printed in the instructions as the binding words. As they chanted, Anubin felt a shiver run up his spine, and he could almost sense the beast as it came closer, spurred on by their proximity. He felt a hand press itself against his back, and he shuddered but didn't let it interrupt him. Marr stiffened too a moment later, and Anubin assumed he'd felt a touch as well.

He almost lost the flow of the chant as he realized that Satele was becoming visible, across the circle from him. She had a beatific smile on her face as she watched them chant and continue to prepare the ingredients for the ritual.

When the chant ended, Anubin tugged on Marr's hand. "Satele," he said. "She's there, across the circle."

Marr clicked his tongue and frowned. "I can't hear her," he muttered. "I believe you, but she is still not tangible."

"I'm here, love," Satele said, sounding as though her voice was coming from far away, as it had when she had faded with the Hotel California.

Anubin and Marr headed around the circle to her, Anubin reaching out his hand to touch her and finding nothing but air. She smiled sadly.

"You can't touch me," she said. "Maybe you'll be able to soon, though."

"You mean..."

"I may come back, if the beast is destroyed. I'm bound to the beast because I worked at the Hotel California, and it is what ties me to the world of the dead. If that bond is broken, I might be able to bring myself back into this world."

"Will you return, though? Will you have the strength to do so?" Marr asked.

"I hope I will," she laughed.

"This is no laughing matter. If you return..."

"If I return, I'll stay with you."

"Whichever of us is left," Anubin muttered, casting a pall over the proceedings. Satele, however, only smiled.

"Best not to worry about that until afterwards," she said. "For now, destroying the beast is what is important." She paused. "It's coming."

Across the field, the three could see the great form of the beast approaching them at a run. Marr and Anubin took up their positions on the opposite side of the circle from it, hoping to draw it into the circle.

They succeeded. The beast lunged at them and found it couldn't move outside of the circle of candles. The flames burned high like emergency flares, casting bright red highlights across the beast's form, now totally solid, black fur standing on end as it began to pace the circle, occasionally snarling at either Marr or Anubin. The wind stopped, then picked up again, rushing around the circle and those around it with the force of a hurricane gale.

"Now!" Anubin yelled, going for the proper candle. With strength borne of adrenaline, he hurled the candle over the beast to the pyre, which lit up in a blast of flame that could probably be seen for several miles.

Both Anubin and Marr ran for the pyre, each intending to sacrifice themselves for the other. Before they could do so, however, Satele – now as solid as the beast was – stood beside the pyre. She fixed Anubin and Marr with a smile that stopped them in their tracks, so full of love was it.

"Goodbye," she said quietly, over the howling of the wind, and stepped forward into the flames. The fire turned a blinding white and towered over the proceedings, stunning all those in attendance, even Marr, blind though he was. When the light faded, both Satele and the beast were gone, and the pyre had burned down to ashes.

Anubin knelt by the ashes of the pyre, tears dripping down his face. He let out a strangled cry of rage that prompted Marr to lay his hands on his shoulders, pulling him back to his feet.

"It's not fair," Anubin whispered, burying his head in Marr's chest. "It's not fair. We've lost her again. It's not fair."

Marr said nothing, only held Anubin until the latter drifted off to sleep.

* * *

When Anubin woke, he found himself in the car, Marr in the passenger seat, asleep. Anubin blinked the sleep from his eyes and started the car, beginning the long journey home.

* * *

Several weeks later, Anubin and Marr passed by a café while out on a walk.

As they did, Anubin made eye contact with someone inside and nearly fainted out of pure surprise.

The woman was the spitting image of Satele.

The woman's smile faded into a quizzical expression, then one of sudden, painful shock, but Anubin didn't notice – he was already pulling Marr into the café.

As soon as they were in the door, Anubin made a beeline for the woman, who was already making her way to the door. "Satele," he whispered.

The woman teared up. "Anubin. Mathias."

Anubin launched himself into her arms, and Marr wrapped his own around them both, and suddenly, they were home.


End file.
